Google Unveils goo.gl URL Shortening Service 242
eldavojohn writes "The Sultan of Search is unveiling a new service (currently only available for Google Toolbar and Feedburner) that will tackle a very old problem usually solved by bit.ly or tinyurl — URL shortening. Now, we've heard cries for sanity to prevent potential issues (like what if tr.im had shut down and broken millions of links?) but with one of the goliaths of the industry jumping in the ring it looks like URL shortening is here to stay. And a quick note for people who enjoy privacy, goo.gl explicitly states: 'Please note that Google may choose to publicly display aggregate and non-personally identifiable statistics about particular shortened links, such as the number of end user clicks.' You didn't think Google was going to sit back and let bit.ly harvest juicy data on 2.1 billion links that were clicked in November without trying to corner some of that action to make their ad suggestions more accurate, did you?" Google's shortening service is called Goo.gl.
Other services work fine (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from twitter and SMS which both have self-imposed limits, what's the point of these things?!
Wouldn't be necessary if... (Score:3, Insightful)
Websites wouldn't be tempted to use such long URLs if search engines would stop using the URL (other than the domain name) as a factor in ranking the search results. How many CMSs now stuff an entire article title into the URL purely for SEO purposes? Is that stuff in the URL really telling the search engine anything that can't be found in the <title> or <h1> tags?
Re:Other services work fine (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate all shorteners. (Score:1, Insightful)
Call me old fashioned, but I like to see where a link is going before I click it.
Re:More POV than news (Score:3, Insightful)
Timothy didn't say it, unless you're accusing him of putting words in eldavojohn's mouth - the quoted bit is (meant to be) written by the submitter, not the editor. Assuming he didn't change it, Timothy wrote "eldavojohn writes" and "Google's shortening service is called Goo.gl."
And there *are* privacy concerns, Google is doing this to mine it for information, that's what they do. It's hardly the end of the world though - don't like it, don't use it.
Re:Other services work fine (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't be necessary if... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not just for SEO purposes. Stuffing the article title into the URL is also informative for those who read the URL. Of course, that belongs inside the tag linking to it, but few formats (besides plain HTML) support anchor text that differs from the link (especially all the text-based mediums that have had hyperlinking shoehorned in by using automatic linkification).
Re:Other services work fine (Score:3, Insightful)
YRUNAHRY?
Re:Wouldn't be necessary if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Long URLs also (should) let us know what's behind a link before we actually click on it.
www.apple.com/ipod/
www.microsoft.com/office/
www.nintendo.com/wii/
and so on...
If you have garbage such as "&id=54353" in your non-search URLs, you're doing it wrong.
Re:Other services work fine (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Using a shortening service because Slashdot has crappy URLs doesn't fix the root of the problem.
Yet it's entirely appropriate since he doesn't control Slashdot nor the myriad sites to which the solution can be generalized.
Even if Slashdot added a 'short URL link' feature for people to read over the phone, most people wouldn't know how to find it - there's no standard mechanism to expose or relate such a thing.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Other services work fine (Score:3, Insightful)
In a way is better to have one company I trust know all about my digital life than spread out that info to more companies.
Re:Other services work fine (Score:3, Insightful)
>>I, for one, will be avoiding this. Existing services work fine and this is one more way Google is headed towards info omniscience.
If a friend emails a Google shortened URL to you, you'll avoid clicking on it?
BUT HOW WILL YOU KNOW IF IT'S A RICKROLL OR GOATSE LINK?
The not-knowing will drive you slowly insane.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would I want to read a URL over the phone? If I'm communicating a URL to someone for deep linking into a site, then the one thing I can be pretty sure of (since, if I wasn't, I'd have no reason to communicate the URL) is that the person has internet access. Given that, there are a lot better ways of getting them the URL then reading it to them--such as email. Even if I want to use the telephone to notify them, I can just describe what it is, and tell them I'm mailing them the link.